Advancement of Learning 1 17 



for cleanness of body was ever esteemed to proceed from a 

 due reverence to God, to society, and to ourselves. As for 

 artificial decoration, it is well worthy of the deficiencies 

 which it hath; being neither fine enough to deceive, nor 

 to use, nor wholesome to please. 



For Athletic, I take the subject of it largely, that is to say, 

 for any point of ability whereunto the body of man may be 

 brought, whether it be of activity, or of patience ; whereof 

 activity hath two parts, strength and swiftness; and patience 

 likewise hath two parts, hardness against wants and extremi 

 ties, and endurance of pain or torment ; whereof we see the 

 practices in tumblers, in savages, and in those that suffer 

 punishment : nay, if there be any other faculty which falls 

 not within any of the former divisions, as in those that dive, 

 that obtain a strange power of containing respiration, and 

 the like, I refer to it this part. Of these things the practices 

 are known, but the philosophy that concerneth them is not 

 much inquired; the rather, I think, because they are sup 

 posed to be obtained, either by an aptness of nature, which 

 cannot be taught, or only by continual custom, which is 

 soon prescribed : which though it be not true, yet I forbear 

 to note any deficiencies : for the Olympian games are down 

 long since, and the mediocrity of these things is for use ; as 

 for the excellency of them it serveth for the most part but 

 for mercenary ostentation. 



For arts of pleasure sensual, the chief deficience in them 

 is of laws to repress them. 1 For as it hath been well 

 observed, that the arts which flourish in times while virtue 

 is in growth, are military ; and while virtue is in state, are 

 liberal ; and while virtue is in declination, are voluptuary ; 

 so I doubt that this age of the world is somewhat upon 

 the decent of the wheel. With arts voluptuary I couple 

 practices joculary; for the deceiving of the senses is one of 

 the pleasures of the senses. As for games of recreation, 

 I hold them to belong to civil life and education. And thus 

 much of that particular human philosophy which concerns 

 the body, which is but the tabernacle of the mind. 



For Human Knowledge which concerns the Mind, it hath 

 two parts ; the one that inquireth of the substance or nature 



1 This subject is very differently treated in the Latin. He there 

 introduces music and painting, not as things to be repressed, but 

 honoured. 

 I 7i9 



